Recovery from estates DWP

muckles

I am the executor of the estate of a deceased family member. In March 2018, after I had obtained Grant of Probate I received a letter the above DWP unit asking for capital and income information relating to the deceased.This letter also threatened me in bold red characters with being personally sued if I released the estate to the beneficiaries of the will.
My relative received a very small sum in benefits each week, almost negible in relation to the estate's value.
The DWP have had all the information they requested for about five weeks. I have just phoned the DWP and they told me they have not got round to looking at the figures yet and worse it could be a couple of months before they release the estate.
I held a PoA granted by the deceased and dealt with his benefits. I have not to my knowledge given any wrong information on the benefits claim.
Has anyone any experience of dealing with this unit in the DWP?
Many thanks.

jackieblack

Yes, we had this letter, sent them all the information, after some weeks/months we had another request for some of the information we'd already sent, repeat x 2.
At one point we were told all the post they receive goes into one room and it takes 3 months to be opened and looked at.
A little over a year later they decided there was nothing to repay.

TBagpuss

Not personally, but I am aware from friends who deal with probates that it is not uncommon, and can take months to resolve.

The DWP can also go back years looking for over payments, so may ask you for bank statements etc.

You would be personally liable if you were unable to pay a debt owed by the estate (such as repayments to DWP) because you had distributed the estate. For that reason, the least risky course of action is to not distribute anything until you have a clear answer from them that nothing is owed.

However, if you are very confident that there have been no over payments or incorrect claims, or that the total amount your relative ever got in benefits is significantly less that the value of the estate, you could chose to make a partial distribution.

Flugelhorn

Can I just ask a daft question - presume these are means tested benefits? I got probate in April and haven't heard a peep out of DWP

How would I know if my mother had had any means tested benefits - her DWP statement lists:

basic state pension
pre 97 additional state pension (less contracted out deduction)
graduated retirement benefit
Age addition

she also got :

Attendance allowance - higher rate

lisyloo

State pension (and the 2 associated parts) are not means tested. They are an enetitlement based on national isurance contributions.

Attendance allowance is not means tested.

Did she get pension credit - I dont think that comes on the same paperwork. You could check the bank statments if you have them. On ours a suffix of SP is state pension and PC is pension credit (attendance might be included in SP).

Flugelhorn

thanks lisyloo - have only found SP and AA on the bank statement so doesn't look like pension credit.
They will probably be after me for some payments made around the date of death but at least it doesn't look like anything else too complex

badmemory

Flugelhorn wrote: »

thanks lisyloo - have only found SP and AA on the bank statement so doesn't look like pension credit.
They will probably be after me for some payments made around the date of death but at least it doesn't look like anything else too complex

If you used the tell us once & registered the death promptly it is unlikely that anything is owing as these payments are normally made in arrears & they do pay for the full benefit week in which someone dies. In my mother's case, she died on the Thurs & we registered it on the Friday. Her SP was paid on that day so that was fine, her AA was paid the previous Friday so they owed us a week.


Any issues with money owing to them always seem to revolve around means tested benefits, usually because the claimant hasn't realised they have gone over the savings limits since the original claim or a late registration of the death.

Larac

When my Mum died in Nov 17, we had DWP on our case re an overpayment of the state pension and AA - we had also used the 'tell it once system' within 3 days of her death. I think it's when death occurred and versus when the money comes into the account that causes these overpayments. My brother dealt with his FIL estate in the same year and DWP were on his case re a 'pension credit' - from what I can gather DWP were checking that the deceased person was entitled to it based on what comes out in the wash in probate. He had friend whose Mum was claiming pension credit and following her death they found a load of shares worth £60K (nobody had been previously aware of their existence) so they ended, paying the PC back.

Flugelhorn

I used the Tell us once and registered the death within 48 hours.

I wasn't sure if the pension / AA was in arrears or in advance - pension went in on the day of death and also one week later. AA last was paid 3 weeks before.

Shelldean

I'd guess the deceased claimed pension credit. And there was a difference in the amount they'd said they had in savings at the point of claiming and the point of death.
Usually due to protected savings.

Unfortunately DWP take an absolute age to deal with these matters. Was about ten months in our case. They asked for two lots of statements. One that we couldn't provide as it was too long ago. And the other was just under six years previously, which we obtained and sent. They finally sent us a request for over payment which we paid promptly and that was it.

SevenOfNine

When my aunt died DWP wrote to say she'd been overpaid on pension, pension credit & attendance allowance (easy to see, money had been paid to her after she'd died), we made the 3 requested payments back to DWP. Tell us Once & the probate application kicks off DWP taking a look.

Then we got a similar letter to you, requested details of her bank accounts on a particular date 7 years previously, whilst at the same time they advised us that financial institutions usually keep records for 6 years! Bit irritating to be asked for info whilst in the same breath saying we probably wouldn't be able to get it.

Barclays misunderstood what I asked for, went back as far as possible (6 years) & sent us copies of hundreds of pages of transactions. I sent the oldest page to DWP, believe it was something to do with either pension credit or attendance allowance claim - whether she'd been poor enough to claim it back then on the particular date they were after.

3 months passed & then we got a letter saying nothing further to repay.